An Aboriginal fish trap on the Swan Coastal Plain: the Barragup mungah

WA Museum Records and Supplements | Updated 8 years ago

ABSTRACT – At the time of European invasion the Aboriginal people of the Swan Coastal Plain were engaged in a complex series of social economic and ceremonial networks which required regular face to face gatherings. The annual winter meeting at Barragup on the Serpentine River appears to have been one of the most important of these events, sustained by the operation of a wooden mungah fish trap which allowed harvesting of sea mullet (Mugil cephalus) and Australian salmon (Arripis truttaceus). This paper provides historical material on the nature and operation of the Barragup mungah and the associated gathering as part of an appreciation of the research of the ethnohistorical research by Sylvia Hallam.